Immediacy and Hypermediacy:

When the Internet became so popular between 1998 and 1999, some of communication scholars anticipated that traditional media (older electronic and printed media) would be soon disappeared or at least decreased. Electronic and printed media had to seek to reaffirm their status within a culture as digital media challenge that status (5).  It was certain that digital technology stimulated the change of the media. So then, which attributes of digital media captivated people? There are many features but, I think, one of the most attractive things is to extend the range of representation. It might be attractive to communicate with a variety of representative tools. This extended representation implies many possibilities, two of which are immediacy and hypermediacy.  

Think about online role-playing games like World of Warcraft and Diablo. Such online games enabled users to achieve immediacy by ignoring or denying the presence of the medium, seeking to put the users in the same space as the objects viewed (11).  The games also enable users to control very detailed hypermediacy. As Bolter & Grusin said, immediacy and hypermediacy are mutually dependent (6).

Rip Van Winkle Hypothesis:

If Rip Van Winkle woke up today, having fallen asleep in 1984, already possessing a driver’s license, and knowing how to use a Xerox Star or Macintosh computer, he would be just as able to use today’s personal computers as drive today’s cars. (39)

I basically agree with this hypothesis. This assumes that as long as the essential of technology is not changed, the technology cannot reach new paradigm, and the period from 1984 to the present is in the same technological paradigm. As he mentioned, it seems that the boundary among digital devices is ambiguous. iPad has all functions but it does not called a laptop. Digital media are being mixed and converged but their functions have been already existed. They just change their covers. That is, the changed is just the design of appearance.

Apple company products are more likely to be related with this issue. Probably, the first image about Apple products is notable designs. Because of their good design, I do not mean the products are functionless. The design might fill the short parts of function. In that sense, I might say Apple products fetish because the appearance (design) hides the essential (function). Consider about wearing cloth. Whatever a person wear cloth, his/her essential would not be changed. But, dressing has obvious visible effect. That is why we wear a suit for a formal event. Analogically, Apple products change their design, but essential technologies. Of course, there are some functional changes but I don’t believe that a simple change in form factor is going to move beyond constraints of existing Apple digital devices (39).